Modern Language - Informally?

[dsacco]

Someone mentioned studying a modern language INFORMALLY and I was wondering what some of the best things to do for this if you have done it.

 

I'm thinking my kids SHOULD learn some Italian (I married into a very Italian family)..... but of course Spanish would be my first choice because of so many people around here speaking it.

 

Has anyone ever changed their TV to be in Spanish? That way some of the cartoons would be in Spanish instead of English...I mean so many kids "learned" language from watching TV (sad but true fact) that to make it informal their favorite cartoons would be in Spanish! :tongue_smilie:

[Kate in Arabia]

Well, when I think of informal I'm usually thinking of immersion. We bought cartoon videos in Arabic when we were living in the States. Here they have a number of cartoon channels, we've had most success with ones that were bilingual -- meaning that they interspersed Arabic cartoons with English ones. Particularly in the beginning, the kids were more likely to stick with it if they watched an English cartoon then an Arabic one followed it, kwim?

 

We got some Arabic computer games, particularly the JumpStart series. I imagine there is a larger variety available in Spanish.

 

Also we got some good quality Arabic storybooks and used these for general reading to the kids (not as part of a "program"). Particularly for me in the beginning, I got a limited number of storybooks and I took the time to learn and practice them on my own so I could read them to the kids fluently and with all the voice inflections, etc. so it would flow like it would if I was reading in English. We read these books over and over (not as punishment, lol, the kids genuinely liked them), I've had to get some replaced as they wore out.

 

hth!

[In The Great White North]

Has anyone ever changed their TV to be in Spanish? That way some of the cartoons would be in Spanish instead of English...I mean so many kids "learned" language from watching TV (sad but true fact) that to make it informal their favorite cartoons would be in Spanish!

 

It's not a question of doing anything to your TV. Just pick a Spanish station or Select Spanish in the initial menu on your DVDs.

 

If you want Italian, it will be more work. Spanish is on many US DVDs but Italian isn't. You can buy a region free DVD player from 220electronics.com and order DVDs from Amazon. At the bottom of the Amazon homepage are the links to European Amazons. There isn't an Italian one, so you'd have to try France or Germany and look at the individual DVD for the languages on that DVD. There are often several.

 

We did this in German for dc before a trip a few years ago. It helped immensely with their passive knowledge. I think we would have had to do a lot more of it to get them speaking.